Overpopulation isn't a problem in any western developed country.
Literally, that's true. However, overpopulation in western developed countries is a problem in underdeveloped countries. The amount of crap that we produce that gets dumped on them is terrifying. You think you recycle your waste at those collection points? You'd be shocked (assuming you have a conscience) at how much of it ends up in 'landfill' (i.e. in the open air, on fire, with children picking through it) in India, or poisoning Chinese poor people as they dip the PCBs in toxic chemicals.
However, rewarding a gamer with "graphic sexual violence" shouldn't be restricted... Guess what? Movies have a rating and an adult is required to get you into certain movies. Should be the same with video games.
I'm a member of the EFF, and I get as rabid as the next/.er about censorship and such like, but I really do think that classification of certain commercial products as "not for minors without parental consent" is justified. That includes movies, books, pictures, alcohol, cigarettes. Children learn what is normal and acceptable through observing the world around them. Skewing this perception with graphic sexual violence, especially rewarding such behaviour in a game, should be restricted.
Getting back to the subject, investing millions of dollars in a commercial product that has tremendous psychological impact on an entire generation isn't "speech", and I'm surprised that the anti-coprorate mindset confuses the two.
SCO is bringing a totally bullshit suit against IBM in a desperate ploy to make their stock worth more than toilet paper.
The merit of the suit is irrelevant to my point. My point isn't really about what's happening in this suit at all. I am replying to the sugegstion that a company threatened with a patent suit, like IBM, could make a hostile takeover of the plaintiff.
The problem is, a large company playing bully by abusing the patent stystem, then squashing the patent-holder like a bug. That ought to be illegal, because it undermines the proper function of the patent system (I know it's fucked for other reasons, but it should be workable). I'm generally a fan of small government, reducing unecessary regulation and beaurocracy, but when that policy gets into the hands of the Republican party, they pervert it into "Don't regulate business, let them do whatever the hell they want with their billions, that's what Capitalism is about", which I don't hold with. With great power comes great responsibility, and if they won't wield their power with care, then they need to be reigned in.
It has rules, like a game. It has winners and losers, like a game. It has pundits and commentators, like a game. It even has sound-effects (that silly bell ringing ritual), like a game. I say it's a game, and I challenge you to point out any way in which it is unlike a game!
The DARPA Information Awareness Office (IAO) will imagine, develop, apply, integrate, demonstrate, and transition information technologies, components, and prototype closed-loop information systems that will counter asymmetric threats by achieving total information awareness that is useful for preemption, national security warning, and national security decision making. (my emphasis)
I think spam, esp. forged headers, counts as an "asymmetric threat" (you gotta love that term!)
They never take down dupes. Anyway, why should this be limited to "paid subscribers"? A dupe is a dupe, whoever notices it.
They do take down dupes before the story goes live. They still will, whether it is noticed by an editor or by a paying subscriber. The reason they don't take down live dupes is because of the comments that have been posted.
If sco asks for billion to save its ass then it would make sense for IBM to just buy them for 16 million and get it over with
Can you really just buy a company that is sueing you? If SCO have a legity claim, then the shareholders are entitled to a slice of that billion. If IBM buys them, can they just screw over the shareholders like that? I'd hope there's a law against that.
Hey, I resemble that comment! Note my domain name -.uk - Conservative, thank you! And if you want to be insulting, just call me a Tory, but I'll have none of that USian terminology, thank you.
It was discovered today by our intrepid reporter adamruck that people that have lots of money can afford things that people that don't have lots of money can't! This, he reported, represented "some sort of ethical problem". We must be able to find a better social system than this, surely!
I think the fact that Lindows is specifically targetting Microsoft Windows compatability might tip the balance in this case. In other words, given that trademarks only apply within specific business areas (think Vax computers and Vax vacuum cleaners), the court would probably rule that they have the tradcemark in the very restricted area of "Microsoft-compatable operating systems". Lindows is very much in that arena.
I work for a large consultancy, the sort that I thought would be infected with this kind of bias, but discovered that pragmatism is very much valued. I was head techie supporting a large application that someone else had written in C, and when we had to fix a bug, I came to the conclusion that recompiling it was probably quite hazardous (we had loads of source code, but couldn't be entirely confident that we had the right code, or that we were using the right compiler options) so I wrote a 20-line Perl script that would run after the main batch processing program, and would fix the mistakes that it made. It was accepted, and implemented. Quick, reliable, and it didn't risk breaking anything.
Good! I don't really care about any individual manufacturer, what I want is a portable Ogg player. If someone else brings out a cheaper or better one, that's fine by me. These guys will get a good few sales by ebing first to market, but after that it's ogg eat ogg (sorry).
Testing doesn't help make the drives more reliable.
Yes it does, on aggregate. I'm more familiar with chip manufacture, and there, they they test samples out of a batch, and rate the entire batch based on the performance of a sample. It works. The quality of the silicon, temperature, vibration, all vary from batch to batch, and in aggregate, the results are fairly reliable.
So, what are the options for a home user, who wants to buy a reliable hard drive? I know three people who have had hard drives fail in the last 2 years. This looks like an option, but a fairly expensive one (comparatively - if I'd just fallen through a time warp from 2 years ago, I'd be out there buying one now).
Slashdot Mirror
I'm a member of the EFF, and I get as rabid as the next /.er about censorship and such like, but I really do think that classification of certain commercial products as "not for minors without parental consent" is justified. That includes movies, books, pictures, alcohol, cigarettes. Children learn what is normal and acceptable through observing the world around them. Skewing this perception with graphic sexual violence, especially rewarding such behaviour in a game, should be restricted.
Getting back to the subject, investing millions of dollars in a commercial product that has tremendous psychological impact on an entire generation isn't "speech", and I'm surprised that the anti-coprorate mindset confuses the two.
There still are references to that name.
It has rules, like a game. It has winners and losers, like a game. It has pundits and commentators, like a game. It even has sound-effects (that silly bell ringing ritual), like a game. I say it's a game, and I challenge you to point out any way in which it is unlike a game!
I just think it's a little unfair on the remaining shareholders, if 51% of the shareholders bail out at more or less the current value.
Hey, I resemble that comment! Note my domain name - .uk - Conservative, thank you! And if you want to be insulting, just call me a Tory, but I'll have none of that USian terminology, thank you.
It was discovered today by our intrepid reporter adamruck that people that have lots of money can afford things that people that don't have lots of money can't! This, he reported, represented "some sort of ethical problem". We must be able to find a better social system than this, surely!
Oh, and another job that mods down any post containing the phrase "I'm going to patent" as redundant. They aren't funny any more.
Maybe it's encrypted one digit at a time, as it's entered.
I think the fact that Lindows is specifically targetting Microsoft Windows compatability might tip the balance in this case. In other words, given that trademarks only apply within specific business areas (think Vax computers and Vax vacuum cleaners), the court would probably rule that they have the tradcemark in the very restricted area of "Microsoft-compatable operating systems". Lindows is very much in that arena.
Set up a cron job that executes twice a week, and posts a "Patent system still fucked" story on Slashdot. That'll save a lot of effort.
No, I got U.S. Patent No. 1 on my time machine. Well, I will anyway.
And no, this isn't an original joke.
I work for a large consultancy, the sort that I thought would be infected with this kind of bias, but discovered that pragmatism is very much valued. I was head techie supporting a large application that someone else had written in C, and when we had to fix a bug, I came to the conclusion that recompiling it was probably quite hazardous (we had loads of source code, but couldn't be entirely confident that we had the right code, or that we were using the right compiler options) so I wrote a 20-line Perl script that would run after the main batch processing program, and would fix the mistakes that it made. It was accepted, and implemented. Quick, reliable, and it didn't risk breaking anything.
Good! I don't really care about any individual manufacturer, what I want is a portable Ogg player. If someone else brings out a cheaper or better one, that's fine by me. These guys will get a good few sales by ebing first to market, but after that it's ogg eat ogg (sorry).
Restrict an email, which is sent over the internet, at the file system level?
So, what are the options for a home user, who wants to buy a reliable hard drive? I know three people who have had hard drives fail in the last 2 years. This looks like an option, but a fairly expensive one (comparatively - if I'd just fallen through a time warp from 2 years ago, I'd be out there buying one now).